


Masks

by RiTheBeta



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Soft Peter, but shh it's a secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 19:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13817880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiTheBeta/pseuds/RiTheBeta
Summary: Peter wears snark, sass and general assholeness as armor. Only Stiles knows and only Stiles gets to see what's underneath.





	Masks

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, let me tell you, I didn't know I could do this. I had a random thought and then bam it was written and before an unreasonable hour last night. Anyway, I'm so proud and I can't wait for you to read it. ENJOY!

It's not like this every day, but it is the usual. Stiles watches from the bed as his soft, loving Peter washes away as he heads to the shower. Detached Peter emerges in a cloud of steam. Snark layers over that, as tight fitting as his designer jeans, followed swiftly by asshole entrenched as deep as his v-neck. It's an amazing transformation, and Stiles considers himself lucky to know it even happens.

The first few times they slept together, the masks and layers of emotional armor didn't come off. But that was okay because snarky, asshole Peter was who he'd fallen for, he was who liked scrawny, sarcastic Stiles. It wasn't that Stiles didn't think he deserved better than a self-righteous prick--thanks, Scott--he actually _like_ s that Peter’s sass matches his in a complementary way.

When Stiles finally met soft, loving Peter it was a complete accident. They had entertained themselves for at least half the night teasing and torturing each other with pleasure. Stiles likened it to a game of chicken, seeing who could hold out the longest. Peter shut that down fast but indulged Stiles’ challenge anyway, stopping all participation anytime Stiles started to make reference to poultry. Needless to say, they fell asleep in an exhausted heap and, when the sun poured through the windows, curtains mistakenly left open, they woke in a still exhausted heap.

Stiles, still used to the unfortunate demands schooling makes of rising long before the body feels ready, had extracted himself, stumbled over to the offending opening in the wall and slammed the curtain shut. If it took more than half a dozen tries because he kept pulling too hard, well, Peter was still asleep and never needs to know. He did, however, manage to make it back to the bed a little more steady on his feet. More's the pity, of course, because that meant he was more awake than he wanted to be.

As he slipped back in between the sheets, Peter blindly but unerringly reached out and dragged him by the hips to his side. Unfortunately, it was not the most comfortable of positions, and, despite the newly achieved darkness, Stiles struggled to return to the bliss of sleep. He tried, very hard, not to shift any part of his body touching or being held down by the werewolf. Not out of fear but because it seemed like it was the best sleep Peter had gotten in a long time. Peter noticed anyway, of course, and woke slowly; concern etched on his face.

“What's wrong, sweet boy?”

Stiles lay there stunned. _Sweet boy?_ Where did that come from? He turned in Peter’s loosened grip to try and parcel out what was happening.

If he thought he was stunned before he was floored after catching sight of his lover. His hair was mussed, but he'd seen it that way before. Heck, most the mussing was still from his own hands rather than sleeping in a bed. But everything else about him was …. mussed too. His right eye was still partially closed obstructed by a sleepy trying to hold on a bit longer. His smile was genuine and lopsided. There were pillow lines creasing his face. He was on his side holding himself up on one arm, but the arm didn't look very steady. In fact, it looked like Stiles could topple him over with one finger. And the way he was looking at him, it made his heart feel warm and full. He looked at him like he was the reason he got up every morning. The reason he made it to the end of every evening. The reason he put one foot in front of the other to make it to the next day.

In that moment, Peter looked at Stiles like he was his entire reason for existence.

“I just couldn't get comfortable, but I didn't want to wake you.” Stiles finally answered, releasing the tension in his body that had held him upright once he rolled over.

“Waking me, looking like that, will never be a bad thing, my dear.”

“Peter!” Stiles playfully shoved him aside. “Don't try and start something. I haven't slept enough to have recovered from last night.”

“I wasn't starting anything, darling. I just enjoy the view.”

Stiles looked down his chest to find the sheet nearly covering his navel. He wasn't sure what Peter had been looking at, but he was still too tired to care. He fidgeted around until he found a comfortable spot and then reached out blindly for Peter.

“C’mere, I wanna sleep more.”

Peter offered up his wrist to Stiles’ flailing hand and allowed himself to be wrapped around the boy. It wasn't long before they were both asleep again.

When they woke up again, Peter rose first. Stiles didn't know it then, but he had already begun stripping away his soft squishy self before Stiles had fully roused.

“No one is going to believe that, underneath it all, you're just a fluffy teddy bear.”

“No, they won't,” Peter answered, leaning across the bed to place a kiss to Stiles’ forehead. “I'm going to get in the shower; I'll be right back.”

When he returned, he was fully dressed, his usual armor in place, no sign of the teddy bear Stiles expected to still be present. He followed him with his gaze curiously, trying to locate the Peter he woke up to earlier, but he was nowhere to be found. He brushed it off as his imagination and headed for the shower.

It wasn't until a month or so later that Stiles actually said something. Like he told Scott from the beginning, he liked Peter the asshole. They worked well together. But he was starting to realize he like the soft Peter that was only for him. He kept that secret closer to his chest than the supernatural secret. Not because no one would believe him, but because now he's pretty sure it's his and only his. The problem was he only got to see that side of Peter if he woke in the middle of whatever stretch of time they'd found for sleeping. He wanted more. He liked the little ways Peter doted on him when he was like that. Like letting himself be maneuvered like a life-sized body pillow or placing his warm calves over Stiles’ ice cold feet. But they were always too tired to do anything else. Stiles wanted to know what it would be like to wake up well rested and bask in the attention for a little while. So when they were up in the middle of the night, having been too tired to do anything but sleep once they saw the bed, Stiles thought maybe they'd be rested enough to fool around. He was wrong, not that Peter was against it. But when he crowded himself into Peter’s space, wrapped a hand around his warm cock, and then promptly yawned into Peter’s collarbone, he found himself tucked tightly against Peter’s body and drifting back to sleep faster than any other time he woke before he was ready.

“Just don't … don't suit up before I'm all the way awake, mmkay?” he managed to murmur before losing consciousness.

Peter ran a hand through the hair on the back of his head and made a noise of consent, but Stiles never felt or heard it.

When Stiles woke up, Peter was leaning against the headboard, reading something on his phone, probably the newspaper. He sighed at the loss of the opportunity to spend more time with soft Peter without having to figure out how to ask about it outright, but when Peter lowered the phone to watch him, he found the opportunity wasn't lost yet at all.

“Good morning, sweet boy,” he purred.

“‘Sweet boy’ is it? Where do you get this stuff?”

“Are you not my sweet boy?” Peter asked trailing a warm hand as far down Stiles’ spine as he could without moving his torso.

The way Stiles arched into his touch like a cat stretching into a sunbeam was answer enough.

“I guess, but that's not the phrasing you usually choose.”

“I like a little variety in my life. Don't you, Stiles?”

Stiles thinks for a while but never answers. Instead, he asks the question that has been waiting in the back of his brain.

“Is this an act? I mean I know you're a sassy, snarky, grade A asshole and I still like you so what made you decide to put on this weird-”

“This is me, in private, with my mate. But do you think my enemies would fear me if this is how I presented myself?”

Stiles shakes his head, just a little. He's still processing.

“And if I shared this with the pack, do you think they'd think it was genuine? No, they wouldn't, you didn't, and you've seen me at my most vulnerable. So you see, I _have to_ “suit up” as you called it last night. No one would believe the real me, and those that might could be a threat to our pack.”

“So the man I fell for is the fake?”

“No, sweetheart. I'm just deeper than I let on.”

“Uh huh.”

When Stiles said nothing else and made no move other than to shift to a sitting position and stare blankly at the wall, Peter excused himself to the shower. When Stiles came back to himself, Peter was his usual cocky self.

“You said, ‘mate.’”

“I did.”

“That’s serious, isn't it?”

“Either way I answer leads to a research spiral right?” At Stiles’ nod, Peter adds, “Let me go get the right books out of the vault for you” and leaves the room.

That was three years ago.

They've come to an agreement. They spend as much time in the morning being lovey-dovey as they can afford and Peter gets dressed in the bedroom so Stiles can watch the protective layers fall into place. He doesn't know why he likes watching it so much, but he does. Perhaps it's because he knows the layers are for him just as much as the underneath is for him and it makes him feel loved in a way he had never felt before. 

If anyone knew about their agreement, they'd probably wonder why they didn't just let their guards down when they got home in the evening and spend that time together. The truth is, they tried. They tried, and it just didn't work. Turns out the layers Peter fit into his personality like his clothes, don't come off as easy. Something about falling asleep peels them away and he wakes up unguarded and vulnerable, emotionally.

Some days, about every other month but it's not always consistent, but it is always on the New Moon, when his wolf is furthest from the surface, they lock themselves away from the outside world, and Peter gets to pamper his mate for the whole day the way he wishes he could. Sometimes Stiles talks about leaving, going somewhere where Peter wouldn't need the masks. But Peter is always quick to remind him of all the reasons they have to stay. Like his dad. Plus Peter’s masks are as much a part of him as Stiles’ weaponized sarcasm and flailing; he wouldn't be the same without them.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hey. I guess if you want you can find me on [Tumblr.](http://ilovebeingme17.tumblr.com) I don't really post all that much but you are more than welcome to come scream in my inbox about anything .... or talk quietly, we can do that too.


End file.
